That's actually an awesome idea, even if the CC were permanently scrapped. A GC that doubles as an Olympic Qualification tournament would mean being able call up all U23s.
This idea gets dumber with time. I just looked at the camp roster and saw very few international quality players. The only player that would definitely be on my starting XI is Steffen and his MLS days are numbered. I'm real interested in how Canouse does. I could see him making it, but would guess he ends up being a situational player or just cover. Delgado might be depth but shown nothing to think he is a starter... the second hyndman gets his career sorted out he will be a better option and guys like Mendez/Ledesma will probably pass him in the next couple of years. Cannon could be somebody for the future, but would have to beat Yedlin and will have strong competition from Dest. I don't see the point in picking an all MLS to then replace them with better players from abroad.
To further this point, I believe that it would send the wrong message to our pool and youth players (particularly IIRC that Excellency states that the non-MLS player would have to be heads-and-shoulder better - no one on our pool always brings a high level of excellency(!) each game). We want them to push our youth talent to play at the highest levels rather than stay at teams in the AA level (~200-300 per 538.com). Players should be rewarded for taking the risk, not penalized. Note: this say nothing about going to teams and leagues that are below the AA level. No beneift should be given just because they left home.
So far they're actually playing in their league in Europe, and it's not some crappy second or third division or youth league or reserve league or one of those leagues below the Kazakh league, they deserve their shot. Is that too much to ask?
I had hoped that there would be a few camp reports but none so far that I have seen. Very frustrating and disappointing. Doesnt US Soccer realize that people are interested in reading about who's looking good and who's not? What theyre doing..... ANYTHING. You can't build interest in a team in a vacuum. Think about it Ernie
But never forget the power of this most fundamental truth from The Physics of Alien: "In a Vacuum, no one can hear you scream."
Well there was an update on Friday. I'll be disappointed if there's not one later today. At the moment US Soccer seems obsessed with the damn ladies.
You mean the ladies that not only actually made it to their World Cup, but are favored to win it? Can't figure why US soccer would be more interested in them currently. I mean the men have the camp cupcake coming up...
We have few 'international quality players', no matter what side of the Atlantic one considers. And projecting as future internationals the euro-based kiddies who are in reserves, youth academies, or the lower leagues is a mug's game, typically badly lost each cycle.
Well, considering, the only NT eligible non-defender or GK on the 2018 MLS all-stars was Tyler Adams, we are pretty much there already.
I think people are conflating "getting your shot" with pool/incumbency status thereafter. I think a player's "home" has to play some role in them getting scouted, whether practical or suggestive. However, "destination" is an inefficient second hand tool for figuring out who plays well when one can simply watch the player. Both in scouting and then with the NT. There then may be pressure to discount the player performance for location, however, if they are playing in a reasonably good league, the best response is probably call them up and kick the tires directly, not go around discounting beforehand anyone not in a prestige league. That is actually headed the opposite direction, which is assume anyone even riding the pine in Prestige League must be better than someone starting in the Championship or MLS. And more pointedly, my concern is that the snob thing has taken off and we don't require -- outside perhaps keeper -- proof of concept. I could understand "giving a shot" somewhat preferentially based on location. I am not a fan of it but you are limiting the preference to merely being called to tryouts. The player then has to show up and play. They are evaluated for how they play. Problem I have is we seem glacially slow if ever to catch onto which of the prestige players can or cannot actually play. I think some of this reflects the misleading thing about big club status, which is that to sign a contract at a club all you have to do is show some promise. You can be under contract to club x and they actually have decided you don't have the goods. We talk up loans at decent clubs but sometimes it actually reflects that sort of pessimism. Meanwhile we talk that player up for the very association his club is not interested in keeping long term. Personally I would do broad tryouts of interesting players at US games, and keep around the ones who play well. In terms of who got called first you indeed might favor the OBVIOUS -- the lame game the snobs play -- but I would cycle around to more creative ideas too. Who plays well stays. That might motivate the players, force them to carry out their roles smarter, and elevate performance over unproven pedigree. Way we do it right now does not motivate players because the pecking order insulates them from competition and being held out for performance. I mean, has Robinson been held to account? Trained hard in what he has done wrong? Tried at a different position where he would be less of a liability? And that's just an obvious one. And I know he contributes assists and that complicates things, but still.
To me this sort of club snobbery game is low effort low efficiency laziness. Any idiot can look down a paper spreadsheet list of pool players and just call the ones who have more prestigious homes. I thought Klinsi pushing it was lazy. You don't then have to watch the game tape and suss out who is actually playing well. Maybe Klinsi wanted players at big clubs because if you are just using short cuts then players at big clubs makes lazy selection easy. If you go back home he can't just start the Roma guy, he has to watch tape and think. To me club affiliation for Nats purposes is a means to an end. We are concerned with do they play, are they healthy, and how do they look. Club teams are just a tool to that end. The coach has a right to judge the player for how the player shows up to camp, or even how he looks on tape. But to me the big club bias is an assumption -- often false -- about what makes that happen. One key problem is it confuses ambition with quality. You can be good at your job and for various reasons be content where you are. A guy who got fired at my workplace for incompetence got hired by a big name company. I think I run circles around him. I think we are competitive at what we do. I think anyone who reflexively believes he is better at his job because the brand name hired him is daft. All it demonstrably proves is he is more ambitious and fooled someone in HR. I think it actually takes some work to watch all our different players in different leagues and try and sort out how League One starter compares to MLS compares to B.1 or B.2 compares to.......but that's the job. The lazy way out is basically neglect of the job responsibility to scout. For every Pulisic that it kind of works for there is a Miazga getting by on affiliation. It's inefficient. Watch the tape, pick the interesting ones, and then hold people accountable to how they play in camp.
Club snobbery is fine if the player is a regular in a top-5 league. That player should be first in line and be given ample opportunities.
The challenge that we have is that it's quite difficult to compare players who compete vs. teams 200-400 in the world to players who struggle to play against top 100 teams. Their performances aren't apples to apples. This is compounded because no one in our pool is a consistent out-performer for the USMNT and we cannot disqualify any player in our pool for one or several head-scratching days unfortunately.
The apples to apples test is NT camps and caps themselves. OK, you're now with the crew. How do you look in practice? Do you make the dress squad? OK, you get 20 game minutes. Sometimes more. How do you look? We routinely call in a few guys who never dress and get sent back home. My issues are that doesn't get applied as strictly to front end performance, and during this phase of the cycle with this young team they should keep looking a lot. There are few real incumbents who have earned it. The rest it's more like we made assumptions and as process declared "enough." But do we have a proven LB? CBs? Mids? Backup keeper? Like I said, y'all are conflating scouting with lineups. I think historically a big club niche has earned someone a call even if they aren't being used much. The difference is that used to be a foot in the door to be judged by performance for the Nats in apples to apples practices and games, and not a red carpet right into the team. I don't mind Klinsi scouting and making emails in part by affiliations. I mind people making lineups that way even after we see Mr. Big Club struggle. It's like saying Mr. Harvard at your work can do no wrong. He may get more do-overs than the rest of us but after your honeymoon most jobs evaluate you on your work portfolio and not your resume. This is like doing lineups on resumes. Once you get them in the colors we know what they look like and their trajectory and role should adjust accordingly. It should be done for everyone like it was for, say, Olosunde. He has big club cred. He got his big club based look. He didn't impress. He goes away a while. That's not complicated or unfair. The players who show get to stick around or start. That's how most soccer teams operate. The "challenge" you are struggling with is the implicit assumption that Mr. Big Club MUST be better. It offends something in you to give some less ambitious or less resumed guy a chance. That is not field based proof, that the big club guy is better. That is a paper based assumption. Rather than assume, put them on the field together. Give them each a game. Objective proof not subjective assumption. In terms of put up or shut up, tough schedule or not, we have not gotten many results for roughly a year. We missed Russia. I am lost at where the pecking order/big club arrogance of having it all sorted out comes from. Recent results suggest some significant degree of coaching, scouting, or talent remains off. We now have a new coach. But at least one thing to consider is we have mis-evaluated players or overlooked part of the pool. Short of giving the coach a year we don't know if it's not scouting. At least part of the answer, to me, will be that some of these U20s are overrated, and that the next cycle of U20s is better than some of them, or that we have overlooked someone. I doubt the answer is just coach up the same people and magically 100% better results. I don't get the reflexive defense of a selection not yet winning.
The incongruity of it all to me is encapsulated thusly. Arriola routinely whacks balls in the stands and had a goal and an assist in the shirt during qualifying. He is back. Amon puts a ball half a yard behind his target and disappears. Parker does his job when called, Miazga doesn't, but Miazga gets called back. Trapp, etc. It's all a little too clubby. Are we running out the best players or the people the U20 coaches voted most likely to succeed. The current NT is so young it's being chosen almost on U20 or U23 principles. There are plenty of U20s or U23s that never get much of a career started. Just because we now populate pro teams all over the place including big clubs doesn't mean the basic maxims of youth development like "they don't all turn out" have gone away.
Some of these kids are Sargent, some are Sweat, and it's not as easy as which club owns them to sort that out. Let the field play talk.
Time is the problem here. We don't have the time to figure out whether someone kicking ass in the Finnish second division may be awesome for the NT. To me, Gall is basically the cutoff point: guy doing more or less decently in a Euro first division league that looks weaker than the MLS. Although with him not being used in the Europa games nor the friendlies, at this point Romain may be below my cutoff point already. That's the problem with the Scandinavian leagues that stop for five months.
The algorithm for comparing our players' performances is too long to write out, but I graphed it as well as I could.